Designs Of Tomorrow - Architecture

Jay came to our firm on 9/8/2020 and claimed to be in a huge rush to get his multi-family project done. We mutually agreed to a 10-week timeline, and our firm began work immediately. We were able to get the project through the TSA-zoning over-the-counter approval process during COVID without needing to go through planning because the projects design and our communication with the planning staff were so thoroughly documented. The plan reviewer responded that the TSA design standards review application was the best that he had ever seen. Our team and our engineering consultants worked overtime to coordinate this accelerated timeline. As milestones arose, we sent invoices and kept working in good faith because we value our level of service. Those invoices were met with either silence or excuses as to why they could not be paid at that time. We continued working even though we had not been paid to meet the accelerated timeline, to which our firm and Jay agreed. We were successful in getting the drawing set to 99% completion by the end of the 10 weeks and submitted for final payments. At this point, Jay completely disappeared. He stopped responding to any form of communication. He left us unpaid and owing our consultants more than $110,000, which we paid out of our funds to keep our relationships with our valued team in good standing. Jay finally reappeared five months later, asking where his permit was and saying that he had all the money to pay us. We do not complete final coordination nor release our drawings for permitting without being paid for the work that we do, so we have resent every invoice, multiple times, and have made it clear to Jay that an architect's role is never to apply for the permit; that is the owner's and/or general contractor's responsibility. We have Jay's set of detailed documents, which our other larger developer clients are, frankly, in awe of, and are ready for his final payment. We are now waiting, again, for Jay to pay us the remainder of the fee that he agreed to pay. This project should have been nearing completion if Jay had simply held up his end of our agreement.